Palm Beach Zoo's First Food Truck Safari Was a Wild Success

Pizza and donuts and falafel, oh my! This past Saturday night, Food Truck Connection teamed up with the Palm Beach Zoo for the first Food Truck Safari. The event combined two things we all love: delicious food and cute animals. And while the furry creatures were more of a spectator sport, attendees got to dive headfirst into a variety of food options from some of South Florida's finest mobile offerings.

Smashing food trucks and the zoo together made for an unexpected combination that led to a huge crowd coming out to see what all the fuss was about. We wondered what made the zoo want to dip its toe in the rising food truck waters. Andrea in the marketing department told us:

"We saw that food truck events were popping up all over South Florida, so we decided to mix food lovers with animal lovers," Andrea said, though she explained there was more to it than just a good time. She pointed out that this event aligned with the zoo's bigger message. "We think food trucks have a very good conservation message because most of them use generators and sustainable palm oil. It's not just that we want to bring people in to serve food; there is a big conservation lesson here."

Dana Krangel

Spectators monkeyed around with the monkeys.

The zoo saw a melting pot of attendees for the event with families and groups of friends that were on the hunt for something different to do on a Saturday night perusing the zoo and the trucks. Because of the added "weirdness," this combination event brought out what can only be described as a massive crowd.

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Great idea, but the lines were way tooooooooo long. Line to get in, line for beer, and super long food truck lines, the lines were so long that we never got any yummy food truck food. Really think the zoo has a great idea, but they need to double the number of trucks and beer vendors or limit attendance.